Tea
by defenestratedmango
Summary: In which tea becomes a ritual.


When Mikasa first prepares and serves Captain Levi his requested cup of tea, it is 0600 on a lightless winter morning. She finds him sitting at the commons table with an ankle resting on top of his knee, the weight of his back pressed against the seat. Around his shoulders is a black officer's coat and the wrinkled sleeves are draped over his chest like they're folded in indignation. His heavy eyes are staring just past the oscillating tips of the torch flames and she is struck by the way his body knows the chair, how many times he's sat like this at the commons table, lost in an undesirably familiar conformation.

She takes great care to set the tray down quietly. As she pours the tea into a solitary molded clay teacup, she sees his head turn out of the corner of her eye. Her eyes drink in the clouds of steam making fists which grab the air above the liquid's surface and dissolve into wispy ribbons above the cup's rim. The smell carries Mikasa to her mother's arms, an earthy sepia spice underscored tenderly by hints of honey. The heat of the teapot's curved handle grows branches through the battle-roughened surface of her hands. When she is finished pouring the tea, she takes the three tips of her fingers off the lid of the teapot and uses them to nudge the cup toward his hand, leaving him to his own devices.

After she leaves the room, he wraps his fingers gingerly just below the rim of the teacup and caresses its side.

An hour later, she returns to take the half finished teapot and subconsciously dips her head like a murmured bow as she swivels on her heel to leave.

The next time Mikasa prepares and serves Captain Levi's tea, they are outside at noon with the sun bearing down relentlessly as they sit. Once she scoots the teacup toward his awaiting hand, he asks her why she's the one doing it.

"It is my duty as a soldier and the least I can do as the person at fault for your injury." She's leaning against the wall next to his table and tucks her face into the stifling folds of the red scarf she always wears.

"We succeeded in deterring the enemy and that's all that matters. There's no use in agonizing over things we can't change."

She is quiet for a moment and pulls a lock of her raven tresses across the scar, hiding the browned red ridges that mark her other reminder. The strands occlude her glance at the brace that wraps itself around his leg like a cylindrical wall, but she knows all about walls. She sees straight through them, seeing the unnatural twist of his leg as it limply traces the forest floor, the feeling of his knuckles blanching on her caved shoulders, and the bitterness of iron on the roof of her mouth.

_I feel powerless to stop those compulsions. When it comes to Eren, I just can't help it. But…what's going to happen if I don't stop myself? What if I end up hurting him too?_

He blinks and looks down the length of her outstretched legs to her pidgeoned toes. She doesn't realize that she let her thoughts slip through her lips but the reverberations of her wavering whisper swallow the room whole. He takes a long drink in place of a response.

The third time Mikasa prepares and serves Captain Levi's tea, her heart is heavy at 1828 in his office. Their tea time routine has evolved. She's stopped leaving right after she delivers his tea. Now he finishes the teapot and occasionally asks for more. When they're not buried too deep within their own heads or have other things to attend to, they talk. They talk mostly about how foolish Eren can be, how Hange's curiosity is easily scarier than any titan they've faced, and the barely perceptible quirks of the people that live around even share relevant bits of their past, their past lives. Together they recall a Japanese lullaby, the taste of a well-made single-malt whiskey, the visage of sunflowers stretching across the perimeter of a field, the thrill of adrenaline through the streets of a now ruined city. So when she enters the room with a burden hanging off her shoulders as she sits opposite him, he puts his pen down and reaches underneath his desk. He pulls out a porcelain teacup that looks to have been intimately crafted and painted a red that resembles her scarf. Her eyes follow the careful flow of the stretching and curling of his fingers like they're water blossoming through the fibers of paper.

"Here," he presents the cup right under her nose. Her head jerks away in surprise. He offers the cup again, more insistent. "It can't hurt."

She regards him hesitantly from under her frowning eyelids and leans forward as he rises out of his chair to meet her lips with the edge of the teacup. He tips it just so and he can see her lips pucker lightly, soft with anticipation. After a whispery sip, she reaches up to receive the cup from him and the silence settles in its comfortable niche. When she reaches for the teapot with upturned palms, he grasps the tips of her fingers and pushes them away. The surprise registers on her hands, her fingers curling loosely as her hands straighten up from the wrist. The pool of blue in her eyes that holds storms with enormous restraint buckles as she looks at him, perplexed.

"Whenever you're ready," he says, lazily pouring tea into his own cup amidst billowing fragrant steam. He nods at her and she can't escape what she has now come to expect. She slumps back against her chair and unravels.

It's the first time they have anything resembling a heart-to-heart conversation. His eyes never leave her the entire time words and feelings spill from her mouth and leak from her eyes and get trapped in the crevices of her face. Sometimes she lets go too fast and when that happens he hands her a pristine white handkerchief to wrap herself back up again so she can continue on, slowly now. She digs and digs until her hands are raw and the feeling of her exposure is visceral enough to physically manifest in needle pricks firing under those worn fingers. The time is almost 2109 as the storms behind her eyes become clouds. When there's nothing else left to say, she gathers the teapot, the teacups, and his saucer and leaves to rinse them out. She returns half an hour later freshly showered with the teacup from his desk.

"Thank you." He looks up from his writing to a sight of sincerity. Her palms gaze at him with earnestness and he offers her a quick half smile and nod.

When she turns around to leave, he smells an organic, spicy citrus and catches the curve of a smile.

The fourth time Mikasa prepares and serves Captain Levi his tea, it has been months since the third and they don't have much time. The leaves of paper on his desk stink of the red tape the government is plastering on the Survey Corps after the last forray, which has cost them all so dearly. She has to deal with leaves too, but she can just sweep them into neat little piles and toss them out.

"It's cleaning day. Don't you have piles of leaves to rake and floors to scrub like your fellow soldiers?" Levi's voice is guarded by his white kerchief face mask.

"I need a break from the smell of bleach and vinegar," She shrugs and digs her toe into the floor behind her. Her gaze falls to the floor. "And I haven't seen you in a while."

He continues to read. She continues to pour.

"Don't act so cold, captain. I know you've been keeping an eye on me. I'm doing just fine, don't worry. Look how well I'm doing."

He doesn't even so much as pause.

Mikasa sighs and turns to leave, stopping with her hand hovering just above the doorknob. "Permission to speak, sir," she says tersely.

Again, nothing.

"You know captain, I once heard a wise man say that there's no use in agonizing over things we can't change. He also said that the only thing we could count on was the hope that we wouldn't regret our decisions." Her voice is a little strangled at the end and so she stops to lift her own kerchief face mask onto her nose. "But I think he forgot something in that last part. I think that when all your days are spent and all your cards are dealt, you cannot escape regret. Regret will tirelessly chase you until your legs have plowed into the earth's core. Regret likes it when you hang on and refuse to let go because that's the only way it means anything."

She took a breath and waited. "The only way to make it stop is to forgive yourself. Forgive yourself, let your heart hold fast, and don't ever look back."

She is halfway out the door until she looks over her shoulder at him, light bobbing and weaving through her eyelashes to illuminate her irises. "Sometimes even wise men need to be taught, eh captain?"

"Levi."

"Hm?"

He finally raises his weary blue eyes to meet her gaze. She doesn't need to do any searching to see that he is hurt, angry, frustrated, unflinchingly self-critical, relieved, fatigued, saddened, hopeful, passionate, excessively caring, all at once.

"Don't call me captain anymore, call me Levi."

When the door shuts behind her, he drinks the tea she's poured in one large mouthful and slams the cup on the tray with finality.

The fifth time Mikasa prepares and serves Levi his tea, she is in his room late at night, 0155 at her best guess. The room is a little drafty tonight so they're both wearing their green capes. She's sitting on the bed, the mattress conforming to her presence. He is standing close to her at the edge of his mattress, knees touching. Their hands are cupped around their respective teacups and they let the steam dance and run around the surface of their skin, condensing at the triangular ridge their foreheads have created. His eyes are closed so he doesn't feel the silky strands of her hair playing touch-and-go with the angles of his jaw or the rounded point of her small nose against the sharper point of his. Her eyes are also closed so she misses the waves of heat from his cheeks that permeate their way through the narrow channel between them and the consciousness of his efficiently cropped hair against her bare forehead. It's tea time. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's the most natural thing in the world now. It's the one thing that hasn't changed about their lives that they can remember. Mikasa knows she can count on Levi and he knows he can count on her. She'll carry him on her back and he'll carry her in his arms until one collapses under the other. The familiarity of the connection is so clear that the things he sees in her and the things she sees in him overlap without merging completely. She knows the pattern of his favorite teacup and he knows just the way she likes her tea to be poured. He's her equal and she's his companion. Just the way it has been for almost a year now.

So when she pulls him in for a hug just as she's about to leave, he wraps his arms around her with the quiet ferocity of a man whose hands have taught him loss. Her fingers link her hands together around his nape of knotted sinew while his head nestles in the gentle rolling nook of her neck. They don't move for a while and she's worried that he's fallen asleep on her. When they slowly peel away from each other, arms floating feather light down the plane of the cape, she remembers the tray. Levi doesn't move from where he stands as she heads toward the door. Just as she brushes his side, he catches her by the shoulder.

"Thank you, Mikasa. Thank you for everything."

_No, thank __**you**__ Levi. _She doesn't say it out loud this time, but Levi reads it on her face. The corners of his lips rise and she lets out a little 'tch'.

"Good night, Levi."


End file.
